Tag: acronyms

Who are we?

In the rush to re-brand itself following Mr Brown’s cabinet reshuffle (one of the aims of which seems to have been to increase the length of acronyms for government departments), the old Department of Trade and Industry has got a little confused over it’s new identity, appearing correctly as the Department of Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform on its homepage, and as the Department of Business, Enterprise and Better Regulation on its About Us page.
(Click the images to enlarge to something readable.)

Elsewhere in the flurry of elongating acronyms, the new Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (the new ruler of Swindon’s Research Councils) is to be commended for the choice of background colour for its website (though not on its ability to distinguish its objectives from those of the old Office of Science and Innovation).

Scope for confusion

There was clearly nobody local advising when a new name was being thought up for the Research Council to be created from the merger of two of the existing ones. The Research Councils, most of which have their main administrative offices in Swindon, are usually known by their initials. So it will be very difficult to distinguish the Science and Technology Facilities Council from Swindon Town Football Club.

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